Prisons, Inmates and Governance in Latin America

This edited collection addresses the topic of prison governance which is crucial to our understanding of contemporary prisons in Latin America. It presents social research from Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay and Argentina to examine the practices of governance by the prisoners themselves in each unique setting in detail. High levels of variation in the governance practices are found to exist, not only between countries but also within the same country, between prisons and within the same prison, and between different areas. The chapters make important contributions to the theoretical concepts and arguments that can be used to interpret the emergence, dynamics and effects of these practices in the institutions of confinement of the region. The book also addresses the complex task of explaining why these types of practices of governance happen in Latin American prisons as some of them appear to be a legacy of a remote past but others have arisen more recently. It makes a vital contribution to the fundamental debate for prison policies in Latin America about the alternatives that can be promoted.

Máximo Sozzo is Professor of Sociology of Law and Criminology and Director of the Crime and Society Program at the National University of Litoral, Argentina. He has held a number of visiting appointments in Latin American and European universities, most recently at the University of Torino. He has been Straus Fellow at the Law School of New York University and Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory. His research explores the contemporary transformations of punishment in Latin America, the history and present of travels of knowledge on the criminal question at a global scale, and the debates around southernizing and decolonizing criminology.

Autorentext

Máximo Sozzo is Professor of Sociology of Law and Criminology and Director of the Crime and Society Program at the National University of Litoral, Argentina. He has held a number of visiting appointments in Latin American and European universities, most recently at the University of Torino. He has been Straus Fellow at the Law School of New York University and Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory. His research explores the contemporary transformations of punishment in Latin America, the history and present of travels of knowledge on the criminal question at a global scale, and the debates around southernizing and decolonizing criminology.

Inhalt

IntroductionSection I. Emergence and evolution

1. Emergency Period Carcerality: Taking Exception to 'the Exception' in Prisoner Power Relations; Christopher Garces 2. The carceral reproduction of neoliberal order: Power, ideology and economy in Venezuelan prison; Andres Antillano3. Tales from La Catedral: the Narco and the Reconfiguration of Prison Social Order in Colombia and Latin America; Manuel Iturralde and Libardo Ariza 4. Emergency Period Carcerality: Taking Exception to 'the Exception' in Prisoner Power Relations; Christopher Garces Section II. Violence, dialogue and exchange

2. 'They can't run the prison without us': Violence, co-governance and public secrets in Nicaraguan prisons; Julienne Weegels

3. Co-governance of 'Dialogue': hegemony and governance in a Brazilian maximum-security unit; Vitor Stegemann Dieter Section III. Alternatives between formality and informality 7. A Decolonial and Depatriarchal approach to Women's Imprisonment: Co-governance, legal pluralism and gender at Santa Mónica prison, Perú; Lucia Bracco 8. The 'prisoner-entrepeneur'. Responsibilization, employment and government at a distance at Punta de Rieles prison in Uruguay; Fernando Avila and Maximo Sozzo 9. Self-Governing Brazilian Prison Communities; Sacha Darke10. Evangelical wings, inmates and governmental relations in Argentina; Lorena Navarro and Maximo Sozzo 11. Tigres, Representantes, Agentes: The Evolution of Prison Governance Arrangements in the Dominican Republic's Prison Reform Process; Jennifer Peirce 12. Governance and and inmates in contemporary prisons in Latin America. Comparative and theoretical notes; Maximo Sozzo